The Best 30 Day Yoga Challenge for Beginners in the World

Whether you want to lose weight, be more active or learn to relax, yoga is a fantastic workout anyone can do. This 30 day yoga challenge for beginners is where I began my yoga journey when I had absolutely no experience and could barely stand up straight on both legs without falling over. Now…Well, I wouldn’t call myself a yogi. But I’m a lot better than I was on day 1. Long story short: if I can do this 30 day yoga challenge for beginners, so can you!

Stop for just 1 sec. I want to point out right now that this isn’t a sponsored post. I just genuinely love this yoga challenge and really want to share it with you. Before doing it, I thought yoga was a super difficult thing you could only do if you were really talented and had perfect balance. But it’s not! Anyone can do yoga and enjoy it.

I found this free yoga challenge on YouTube. To make it quicker and easier for you to access it, I’ve embedded all the videos at the bottom of this post. So all you have to do is scroll down to the video and hit play. Don’t forget to add this page to your favorites or save it on Pinterest so you can check back for each daily lesson!

The 30 day yoga challenge for beginners classes are run by a super-friendly woman named Erin Motz, formerly of Do You Yoga and currently of Bad Yogi. She clearly and slowly explains each of the postures and does them at the same time as you. This way you can watch and copy her so you know you’re doing them right.

All you have to do is complete one of the videos each day in the comfort of your own home when you’ve got a few minutes to yourself. It’s so much quicker and easier than going to the gym and paying to join a yoga class that you’ll never actually have the time to attend, right?

Each class is 10-20 minutes long, so you’ll always be able to squeeze in a quick video. No matter how busy your day is! If you miss a class, just catch up the following day by doing two videos back-to-back. I won’t tell – promise!

Here’s a quick overview:

Overview of the 30 day yoga challenge for beginners

Day 1: intro to yoga (great beginning)

Day 2: chest & shoulders

Day 3: posture

Day 4: abs (this one’s tough!)

Day 5: core strength (so it this one!)

Day 6: lower back

Day 7: crow pose (way too advanced for me!)

Day 8: back flexibility

Day 9: balancing poses

Day 10: the side body

Day 11: restorative (will make you fall asleep!)

Day 12: wrists & hands (bit weird, but stick with it!)

Day 13: lower back & hip opening

Day 14: for runners (so helpful!)

Day 15: non-stop standing flow

Day 16: splits (only for the v flexible!)

Day 17: full body flow

Day 18: head-to-toe sequence (tiring, but awesome)

Day 19: twists

Day 20: shoulder strengthening

Day 21: headstands (I wish!)

Day 22: restorative yoga flow

Day 23: neck & upper back

Day 24: no sweat morning yoga

Day 25: sun salutation (love this one!)

Day 26: for the office (super useful)

Day 27: for the IT bands (not that kind of IT…)

Day 28: dancer pose (pretty achievable!)

Day 29: for better sleep

Day 30: full body yoga

There’s absolutely loads going on! So if you’re totally yoga newbie, you can easily find what you love and what you don’t. You can see from the comments in brackets which ones I love the most.

Yoga tips for beginners at home

If you’re totally new to yoga, I don’t want to just throw you in the deep and let you get on with it. To help you get the most out of this 30 day yoga challenge for beginners and become a confident yogi, here are some yoga tips for beginners at home:

Create a yoga zoneUnless you live in a great big mansion with loads of rooms (in which case can I please move in?) you probably don’t have a room you can dedicate to yoga. Instead, find a place in your house where you can create enough space to roll out your yoga mat without worrying about banging your head on a desk or getting your hands stuck under your couch. This spot doesn’t have to be a permanent yoga zone. I use my upstairs hallway because it’s got no furniture in it and I can easily roll my yoga mat out without having to move anything.

Don’t push yourself too far Even though yoga is a low intensity sport, you can easily cause yourself a serious injury if you’re not careful. Listen to your body and when a stretch feels like it’s too much, pull yourself back a little to release the pressure. Yoga is one of those things that you improve with practice. Don’t try and be a master yogi on day 1. Some days my body is more tense than others and when I feel a stretch is more painful than opening, I always pull back.

Make yoga a priorityThe easiest way to complete this 30 day yoga challenge for beginners is to make your practice a non-negotiable priority. Tying a yoga class into another daily habit is a great way to ensure you do it every day. I practice yoga at the end of each work day when I turn my laptop off. But you can do it after you brush your teeth, take the dog out for a walk, anything you do every day.

Don’t be discouragedIt’s easy to watch a yoga instructor describe a move as “easy” then watch them do something impossibly difficult and feel bad about yourself. But you really shouldn’t. In the first video in this yoga challenge, Erin does the famous yoga cross-legged move. A pose which I still can’t do to this day! We’ve all got our strengths and weaknesses. If we were all the same and all had the same abilities, the world would be a pretty boring place, right?

Download my 30-day yoga challenge calendarI always feel so much more motivated when I can see my progress right in front of my eyes, don’t you? That’s why I created this calendar! It’s a 30 day calendar with numbers and yoga poses you can cross of each day until you complete the challenge. It’s great for seeing how far you’ve come and for spurring yourself on to the finish line. You can download it for free and print it off when you sign up for my newsletter.

Buy yoga accessoriesHaving the right yoga accessories can be the difference between a fun, beneficial workout and a painful, never-to-be-repeated workout. To start off with, I recommend you invest in at least a yoga mat. You can pick them up pretty cheap and they’ll save your bones from some serious aching! Check out the recommendations below to see which yoga products I love.

Best yoga accessories for beginners

Workouts are always so much more fun when you’ve got the right clothes and accessories, in super cute colors and designs, of course! Click on any of the images below and it’ll take you straight to the Amazon page where you can buy it.

My history with this 30 day yoga challenge for beginners

There’s a background story with me and this 30 day yoga challenge for beginners. It’s the reason I’m so determined to finally complete it this month! This will be the 4th time I’ve attempted this challenge. The first 2 times I quit because I skipped too many days to catch up. But the 3rd time? It nearly drove me insane!

One thing I love to do is start a 30 day fitness challenge 30 days before I go on holiday. It’s like a countdown I do to up the anticipation of going on vacation even more. One month before we went to India in spring 2015, I began this yoga challenge for the 1st time.

I stuck with it and did one video every single day. The day before we were due to fly, the internet went down in our whole village. I figured it would come back on again in a few hours, so no big deal. At the time, I didn’t have data on my phone, so I planned to wait until the internet came back on, finish up the work I needed to do then complete that 1 final yoga class. But the internet never came back on!

Seriously, it felt like the yoga gods were against me. There was nothing I could do. 29/30 yoga videos is the best I’ve ever done, but this time I’m 100% adamant I’m going to see it through. Even if the internet cuts off and I do the final video in front of strangers at my local cafe, I am going to finish this challenge this month!

Comments

OMG I just finished this challenge I loved it! I’ve been practicing for about 3 years but I still feel like I just started when it comes to certain things. I found this helped me refocus my long term goal in becoming a Yogii

I am about to start this challenge & I am so excited to begin!! I have had ankle issues my whole life, but lately they’ve been getting worse. I remembered when I used to dance that it really helped strengthen them. I figured yoga would be similar in helping my ankles. I found your video & knew it was just the thing I needed. I’ll let you know at the end of 30 days how it went 😀

I did my first yoga video today and I love it. So tomorrow April 19th I will be doing the 30 day challange. I am very out of shape, I work in a office where I sit behinde a desk every day. So I’m tired of feeling tired and not comfortable with me anymore.

I am on day 6 of this challenge and I have found that I love yoga. It’s my first time trying it and can’t do all of the poses but I am getting better at it everyday. I sit behind a desk all day and have for 10 years , and now I have osteoarthritis and yoga is helping releave some of the pain. Can’t wait to see how well I will be in a year.

Don’t worry Barbie – you’re not alone! You know on Day 1 when Erin does the cross-legged pose? I couldn’t do that then and I still can’t do it now! I’m so happy to hear that yoga is helping you manage your pain. It’s always wonderful when you try something new and it works out! 🙂

Hi Saxone, Laura, susan chesworth, Ammie and Jen R, if you click the video link and open in a new window or tab, you’ll come across the videos on the right side, just keep clicking and subscribe and it should work out fine! I’m about to try this challenge as I was looking for something similar, so hopefully this works! Good luck and Namaste ladies!

Ooh, yay! Thankyou for sharing the videos and thankyou for all your stories and advice above too. I am starting this tomorrow. Am very excited, as I haven’t ever successfully completed anything in my life- apart from pregnancy. Lol! Seven years later, a ton of health complaints and a new mind set (about being 31 and being comfortable being me) have all aligned and I want to start trying for another baby with my husband. Yoga will be a fab way to start! So blessed to of come across your pin! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! Xx.

Hi there ,I suffer from c o p d which is a lung condition . I have been told that maybe yoga could help me . I can’t run jump or do any exercise that is too strenuous . I am 64 years old and could do home exercises . My strength is poor but I feel maybe some of the movements would benefit me .i take 4 inhalers a day .what do you think ? Am I a hopeless cause ?

Hi Carol, so happy to have you here. Of course you’re not a hopeless cause! If you haven’t already, I definitely recommend you give this yoga challenge a try. You can pause it and re-start it as many times as you like so you can follow along at your own pace. That’s what I do. 🙂

Hi I just found this on Pinterest and I’m going to start, this will really help with my new years resolution and it will help me to get better at yoga. Thanks. Also can you recommend any yoga positions to help with shoulder and neck pain please.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Laura! This yoga video series is the one that got me into yoga, so I know first-hand it’s a great place to start. There are some videos in this series that are perfect for helping with shoulder and neck pain. Day 11 focuses on shoulder opening and day 27 looks at yoga for the shoulders. Both videos cover shoulder and neck poses, so they should really help you out.

I have promised myself I’m going to do it. I’m not convinced it’s going to make much difference but here goes. Fingers crossed, wish me luck. I better not turn into one of them happy clappy dippy hippy divs (unless it’s a really skinny one).

I happened to chance upon this through pinterest finding myself a 30 day challenge to get healthy! Lucky for me it’s morning…and I started my 30 day challenge with this 30 day Yoga challenge…I absolutely loved it….I don’t do Yoga….but i’m starting now. Thank you! Love the Yoga instructor…she’s very pleasant and delightful!

Hi Ingrid! I’m not sure I 100% understand what you mean, but if you click on the arrow to the right of the play button at the bottom of the video player, you can skip through the videos in milliseconds. Hope this helps!

I am loving this! I have never done yoga before and after I do it I feel awesome! The only question I have is, am I doing the downward dog correctly? My wrists hurt whenever I do it. I am an overweight person so I didn’t know if that is the reason or if I am doing it incorrectly.

Hi I just started the yoga challenge I am also brand new to yoga and I’m trying to keep a yoga journal so would you plz list out the names of the poses we do in the order that we do them plz? I really love the first challenge thank you for sharing.

Thanks for Sharing your nice and informative Words on Yoga. Above yoga tips for beginners are just fabulous and helpful for yoga lovers who want to start yoga to kick start to their yoga Journey. Above article descriptive and informative especially for new yogis. Yoga informative Stuff…..Keep it Up………